#sorry this is REALLY messy these characters have existed for literal years so their lore is all over the place.

[sketchzecri]

Tell me Abt choco pretty please. R they a cereal mascot

Worse.

Choco is a very pathetic sopping wet cat of a man (ive comissioned molty for him twice!! :3)

Literally where do i begin.

So. Necromancy in my world is very complicated magic. And verrry forbidden because instead of just making a corpse move it drags their spirit back to their body repairing the damage if done right. But thats HARD to do. Like super duper hard. In fact, the only way to consistently and effortlessly revive people like that is to have it in your bloodline.

Obviously this kind of magic is scary and weird. So it becomes punishable by death, (some places killing you just for having that magic in you at all. Fucked up)

But they never caught my girl FREYJA AYYYYYYYYYYY

Freyja is Choco's mom. She escaped the law by leaving the city walls and living in the woods :3 She has Choco first then later Cloud. Both of them inheriting her magic. (They also have a skeleton cat named Keke but shes largely there to be cute)

One day, while fucking around in the forest, our young Choco runs into Kaveah, who had ran away to explore the woods. After freaking out about seeing another person, the two hit it off quite well! Choco shows Freyja his new friend and Freyja is like what the fuck that is literally the princess what. Kaveah promises to not tell anyone because she would also get in heeps of trouble for sneaking out.

Womp womp her dad finds out

And he is FREAKING OUT.

Mars has like. A whole onion of issues but tldr he freaks, attacks their family, kaveah defends them, she loses her eye in the process oopsies

After calming down (and realizing he just nearly killed his daughter oops) he stops sucking and is like you know what you mean a lot to my daughter and youve cared for her so much so for as long as i remain king i will keep you and your family safe (to freyja) and they cool now

Womp womp fire

So remember how i mentioned cloud? Yeah that's choco's dipshit brother from hell. He lights the cabin on fire with the intent of killing Freyja and Choco (he's like. Maybe 7 here i think i cant remember.) But dumbass gets HIMSELF killed instead! And freyja

Choco gets out of there

And my boy is NOT doing too hot pun unintended

From then on he lives in the palace with Kaveah then they grow up get married yadda yadda have a son hisbname is Taffy (picked it out himself (hes trans))

So heres where it gets messy. Im not gonna try to come up with anything on the spot but Taffy gets impossibly sick so he calls upon a spirit of some kind to fix him it works YAY

Something happens so he goes to do it again but GUESS WHO ITS CLOUD BITCH KABLAMO and so cloud switches places with Choco. Stealing his body and sending Choco to afterlife hell (its not really hell its complicated not gonna talk abt it here)

And thats kinda it for choco. Theres a few plotpoints that he helps in with other characters but in terms of big events thats it.

There is something here about multiverse travel but thats post-story fluff and roleplay physics

[paradife-loft]

Hi! I absolutely love the meta about NMJ's Empathy memories being unreliable, and it's got me wondering about how his qi deviation and death actually went. Since LXC says he saw the qi deviation (and Fatal Journey says it was in public), what's your take on how JGY got NMJ into his secret room so he and Xue Yang could use the Tiger Seal (and eventually kill him)? Fatal Journey has the Nie sect holding a funeral for him, so presumably NHS had /soneone's/ body to bury, but then in The Untamed LXC later says something like he 'hasn't heard from' NMJ in years and had feared the worst, so things... don't seem to add up? What do you think?

Aaah, okay, so: first off, I’m incredibly sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this, and I nonetheless  very much appreciate your interest in my opinions here <3 If you’re still hanging around/following me/reading my blog, anon, idk how obvious it’s been that I’ve… not been having the best few months brain-wise, but that’s basically all I can offer as an excuse for why this reply is coming so late. Thank you for your patience!

So, okay, I think I’m going to try and tackle this question from a couple different angles. First of all, I think it’s worth looking at the material provided in the contained story of the 50 episodes of The Untamed on its own, to see what that suggests, before bringing in outside or supplemental sources, which is what for this purpose I’d consider spin-off movies, details in other versions of the broader MDZS story material, etc. to be. Also, I want to note upfront that while I do tend to incorporate different details and versions of events from both CQL and MDZS into my personal headcanon, what I write in my fic, etc. because I think they tend to provide interesting possibilities, elaborations, and what-ifs for a broader composite MDZS-adaptation-universe – for the purposes of this post, I’m going to stick to material from The Untamed and Fatal Journey only. Mostly, my reason for that is that there’s a few logistically distinct details of how the qi deviation happens in MDZS compared to CQL – one being, it happens at Qinghe rather than Lanling – that I believe affect the timeline of what Jin Guangyao is doing with Nie Mingjue’s corpse in the first place.

Alright so, in The Untamed alone, the evidence such as we have includes: the Empathy sequence involving the qi deviation in episode 41, and Lan Xichen’s statement in episode 39 recounting that he saw it happen himself at Jinlintai, and that after hearing nothing from/about Nie Mingjue since, he’s been “mentally prepared” - presumably, for the news that he’s dead. What I’m inclined to take from those two pieces of information, is essentially a story like this: NMJ qi deviates, very publically, and at some point while this is happening, he makes a break for it and leaves Jinlintai, and whatever presumably messy trail he leaves in the process ends up going cold for anyone trying to follow, with no NMJ around to be seen. With various factors at Jinlintai invested in retrieving him for attempting to turn him into a controllable fierce corpse, it’s pretty easy to imagine that, besides whatever above-board search party tried to follow him, there would also have been another party closely watching his movements for an opportune moment to slip in and scoop him up to bring him back to the secret treasure room for fierce corpse experimentation – hence why the trail would’ve gone cold.

Now, the actual scene showing the qi deviation itself doesn’t include multiple elements I’m positing or including here – specifically, the presence of a bunch of third parties actually witnessing it, LXC included, and then also the idea that NMJ ever left that one landing at the top of the stairs during the qi deviation at all. But, since we see in other parts of the Empathy sequence that the events shown can be… a bit more impressionistic than accurate; and furthermore since it seems reasonable to posit that the memories of the time when he has a literal break with reality might be even less literally reliable than the rest of them – I think those aspects can be reasonably explained away as that scene portraying more of what the qi deviation felt like from the inside, than what an outside observer would’ve seen. Nie Mingjue’s focus is Jin Guangyao, so Jin Guangyao is all he sees – up until Nie Huaisang breaks through that monomaniacal focus and is seen, finally, as himself.

(If you particularly want to pull out some feelings, I might even suggest the idea that finally seeing a distraught NHS was the thing that pulled NMJ sufficiently out of his rage to be lucid enough to flee – and that he booked it in part because he was terrified and ashamed to possibly hurt his younger brother, whether physically or emotionally by letting him see NMJ in such an awful state.

So then, aside from that: the question of what we see in Fatal Journey. I’ve actually been trying to find an answer about what kinds of mourning customs would be followed or even possible if a family didn’t actually have their loved one’s body on hand to bury, but thusfar my internet searching hasn’t really gotten me any useful information one way or another – if anyone reading has an idea or some good sources to point me to, I’d love to hear them! Everything I’ve read so far seems to very tightly marry the performance of appropriate rites and the presence of a body together.

That said, looking back through the actual funeral scene in Fatal Journey, I also wasn’t able to notice the presence of a coffin anywhere in the set, either? We see a memorial tablet, set up in the front of the throne room at Qinghe, and what looks like a brief shot of some offerings, and NHS stoking the fire, but in the couple brief scenes of the inside of the hall, I don’t think there was a coffin set up there? (Or, for that matter, out in the courtyard which we get a longer look at, either.) Compared to what I at least assume is a coffin with Jin Zixuan’s body inside during the mourning scene in episode 32, I feel like it’s reasonable to guess that, even with Fatal Journey included, whatever mourning rites took place at Qinghe after NMJ’s death, they may simply have not involved a body or a burial at all.

- And actually, now that I’m thinking about it, taking Fatal Journey into consideration overall suggests that it might ultimately be the norm at Qinghe to hold mourning rites without a body present – because per the lore additions in the movie, the Nie sect leaders go down to die on their own at the bottom of the saber tomb, and it sure doesn’t look like anybody had been going down there to retrieve them once they did? So, I don’t know, maybe there’s some sort of symbolic burial of something associated with the sect leader as a Nie custom, to keep things looking a bit more normal and less “we build a tomb for these resentment-filled blade spirits that eat our sect leader’s sanity”, and that’s also what ended up being done for Nie Mingjue?  But, yeah, there’s no real confirmation happening even in the movie that NHS was able to come back with a body to bury, so I don’t think that necessarily contradicts the idea that NMJ could have gone missing during his qi deviation and never been properly recovered for a 100% confirmed death.

(That said, I personally don’t tend to incorporate, oh, most of the specific events or points of lore from Fatal Journey into my own readings on various elements of the story? Like, quite frankly, I don’t really like the movie that much, and I think it opens up a lot more unnecessary character and worldbuilding questions without doing a good job of integrating them back into the rest of The Untamed’s continuity (er, such as it exists XD). So I don’t necessarily have an opinion on whether “the Nie sect generally doesn’t do bodily burials of is clan leaders” is an idea anyone should pick up for The Untamed canon; merely that if you do take the events of Fatal Journey as canon, it certainly seems like it could be a possibility.)

(And again, big, big big disclaimer here that, e.g. if holding any kind of mourning rites without a body present is actually super Not Done, then what I’m saying with this part might be totally moot, and then well…. who knows, there’s plenty of speculation that could be used to cover that gap up – maybe “they never found the body” wasn’t actually widespread knowledge, but rather just information LXC had special access to due to the relationships he had with the people involved? – and some set of people depending on your preferences conspired to get another body to stand in for NMJ’s to allow them to hold a funeral? ….Which honestly sounds incredibly sketchy to me on its own, but considering all the other professionally Yikes-style desecrations of bodies that happen in this story…. who knows? I’m really just tossing out ideas here at this point, not saying I necessarily endorse any of them outside of “I think this could potentially work in some way without being out of character for anybody”.)

Anyway… I hope that answers your question, anon, and is otherwise interesting for everyone else reading? Thank you for the ask, and apologies again for taking so long to respond! <3

[infinitesimalyerkesdodsons]

Me: okay im feeling kinda good about the el noli au time to work on i--

Motivation: JANUS SILANG AU CONCEPT

Some messy bullet point explanations for the characters under the cut (since they contain spoilers and might get too long to read and scroll past lmao)

Warnings: death mention, cannibalism, gorey descriptions, betrayal

Thank you for considering reading this explanation lmao 🍪 have a cookie!!!

- so what i wanna say here is that the janus silang stuff has themes that revolve around twins and duality

- I'll also refer to janus sanders as deceit here so as not to cause confusion with his namesake

- there are three sets of people that have something to do with twins: miro and mira, the tiyanak and tala, and probably Janus himself, given his name and some stuff about his character that gives him this sort of dual nature thing

- i was actually tied between whether I make thomas or janus as Janus Silang in this, because thomas' red shirt with the star on it looks similar to the one Janus usually wears, but Deceit and Janus are essentially namesakes

- i decided to go with both of them because of how i saw Janus as a character. His duality in my opinion is brought by the fact that he used to know and be super close the main baddie of this story, the tiyanak, and was used by the tiyanak to gain important information (sorry remus!!!) and yet he's also the only one that has the power to help the counterpart of the tiyanak, tala (roman)

- it's also interesting to note that I also think that Janus' duality will fully come out in the fifth and final book in the series

- during the fourth book he was fated to die in order to set the world right, however this death wasn't just physical death, but an existential death in which his sacrifice reset the whole timeline and created a world wherein he never existed in the first place.

- only one person, who used to be a diwata, now human, remembered him. I hope that Janus returns in the fifth book and things are set back into place.

- anyway, the fact that this happened shows a big duality; his past existence saved the world and his nonexistence created an alternate world in the future that didn't need saving at all

- the timeline where Janus existed (2015 when things went down), I assume is simply an alternate universe where magic exists and is based on Philippine Myth and belief. The nonexistent Janus timeline (which is 2018), I assume, is this world we live in right now, a more realistic version of the original timeline.

- i want to think that janus, tala, and the tiyanak disappeared permanently from existence in order to set the world right

- it was said that only tala and the tiyanak can match each other in power, but in order for one to die the other must die as well.

- meaning that whatever happens, both tala and the tiyanak will disappear to save the world, but janus still has to die permanently in order to make tala's existence possible.

- which brings us to the other twins, tala and the tiyanak

- some important stuff in this is that the tiyanak and tala were twins born from a curse from humans in the Tabon cave.

- the tiyanak was cursed as a baby to be a man eating baby who eats the innards of people who neglect their family (or so i remember???)

- their very existence as cursed magical twins was a mistake, so bringing back to the saving the world part, in order to set the world right they both have to yeet out of existence

- as for their duality

- the tiyanak as i said earlier is a cannibal, and can create creatures to do his bidding. These creatures are from Philippine Mythology and each have their own abilities. He emerged from his mother's womb fully able to walk and talk, and can shapeshift into a child. (He cannot shapeshift into an adult though, so his underling creatures, the do-ol, do it for him)

- the tiyanak during the first book, disguised as Janus' brother in order to gain information about his twin, since Janus was supposedly the only one that can help Tala reach maturity to counter her twin.

- tala on the other hand was born without enough physical maturity, and is said to age by one year every 1000 years. When the events of the story play out tala is nearing her true maturity and only needs janus to do so.

- interestingly, before she appeared as her true form, before Janus' whole dying from existence thing, she looked like the tiyanak.

- anyway this is an abrupt end to this part of the explanation but let's get to the third set of twins

- miro and mira

- the thing with miro and mira is that they're not polar opposites unlike tala and the tiyanak. they have the same ability of switching and seeing between a purely magical world and the lesser magical earth.

- i chose logan and patton based on their personalities and the dynamic of the duo

- miro is more extroverted of the two, which seems like a good fit for patton

- mira is more reserved and quiet, and less open with talking about her ability. She preferred to figure things out on her own, retreating into the pure magic world in order to experiment with her ability.

- they die tho, miro by literally getting vertically cut into half in the middle of teleporting to the pure magical world, and mira by the hands of a mambabarang in the fourth book.

- the thing about these twins is that they don't necessarily completely oppose each other, and only their personalities seem to be different.

- i can see a similar thing happening with logan and patton, how they're not moral opposites but differ with how they work.

- next up is mica and renzo

- they're not twins but their characters are really important to the story

- mica is janus' crush, who gave him a usb necklace in the shape of a star (at the same time, star can be translated to "tala" in Tagalog, and the usb necklace played an important part throughout the series as well.

- she also played an important part in the third and fourth book, being a regular human without any power gave her advantage to magic (and lack thereof) related problems.

- And finally renzo

- did i mention that janus was orphaned? Well he was and another important character took him in. Renzo was also an orphan and he and janus had a brotherly relationship.

- that is, until janus got stuck in a dilemma where he could only save either Mira or Renzo from falling off a literal cliff, at the very end of the third book. Janus saved mira and renzo was left hanging and eventually fell (Well that was a cliffhanger amirite heheehe)

- one bit of lore about renzo is that he was a creation of the tiyanak as well. The tiyanak saved renzo from his doom and revealed this and I dont exactly remember why but it definitely had something to do with Janus as well.

So uh that's it i think hsjdjs this is kinda messy but yea if you made it here 🍪 have a second cookie!!!

[riskeith]

HI BABY!!!!

I LOVE THOSE TYPES OF VIDEOS SO MUCH THE SECOND THE SONG STARTED I KNEW WHAT WAS GONNA HAPPEN!!!! I’M SO HAPPY ALSO THE PLAYER TRYING TO MAKE ZHONGLI DANCE SKDJFJDKDJFLD i love how dancin’ has just become the official genshin song.

yes back to scheduled program:

it’s a super unpopular opinion 😳 i’ve never heard anyone say that skdhdfjdks. but same i think i’ve seen the first two over ten times throughout the years but i’ve only seen the last one Once. the movies do a great job at lore though so i don’t think reading the books are necessary... personal opinion. OH idk how famous it is but it’s a truth and dare fic and it’s super nsfw idk how much you like reading those but it’s called ‘it started with a spin’... it’s a mess but i remember reading it years ago and really enjoying it jshshsj.. also WOW???? you really fell into the drarry hole huh? granted it’s understandable they have some amazing writers. and sooo much content.

BUNNY CUTE CLUNA OH MY GOD HE SAID BUNNY CUTE!!!!!!! 🥺 ok this just made razor and bennett my new favorite duo in the game sorry everybody else..... ok nvm aether + razor too? wait no now i’m confused razor should be everybody’s baby.. including ours yes let’s adopt him... i can’t believe we already have children together 😳

RIGHT? i love that so much too! as much as i enjoy canon bamf midoriya i love fics that contain quirkless midoriya as well. something about him not needing a quirk yet changing the world is just *chefs kiss* that does feel like a you thing to do lmao sjshskks imagine how easy writing would be that way. also i’ve been curious about smth: do you have any favorite fics you can recommend? longer fics perferably i’m feeling Angsty.

it is a long time but idk.. it can create friendships that last for a long time. i’m still bestfriends with people i got to know at 5 years old and i’m 21 now so sjsjdksdk i guess being around each other for so long makes your bond different. but i’m sure it’s the same when you share those crucial teenage years together too.

diluc is always there and he’s so tempting.. damn. but yeah after xiao you could go for it!! imagine having xiao and diluc on your team... the fucking op-ness. is it difficult to get primogems at the higher levels?

WHAT????? are you kidding????? holy shit this game is on something.... how long will it take to ascend hahaha. now i know what streamers mean when they say that it’s okay to stop at level 80 with most characters....

CLUNA DO YOU HAVE 8 TUMBLR ACCS OR AM I PICKING THIS UP WRONGLY.... but jokes aside that the best system you don’t have to worry about spamming one blog or it being messy. i admire that a lot, couldn’t be me but i admire that a lot.

CHONGYUN EATING COTTON CANDY.. i just got a visual like him picking cotton candy from his hair and snacking on it help shdjjdhdjsks he’s so adorable. (pink and blue are equally used here!! i mostly see it during fairs and stuff. do you like it?) dip dye was so famous around that time remember when everybody did it? i remember crying bc i wasn’t allowed. and yeah i dye my hair once a year usually. mostly softer brown colors (my natural hair color is dark brown) and black when i’m feeling emo. i did peachy red hair once and i think that was my prime hsjsks. wbu? have you ever dyed it?

OIKAWAAAAA....... there’s something so fucking good about a seemingly confident boy that’s actually super insecure and very passionate that just hits right. right? and i do have two hq wips actually they aren’t very advanced because i’ve been so busy but they exist. one iwaoi and one kagehina. those two are my main ships in the show so far actually, that might change but who knows. i just love those two soooo much. the dynamics are just mwah. i need to get them out in the world some day.... hbu?? are you currently working on anything? hq or anything else? AND OFC IVE SEEN THAT. i actually love that drawing sooooo much cluna i remember seeing it weeks ago and going aaaaaah wow. the crown,,, his hair,,, i just think you’re the most amazing and i have such a crush on your talent.... 🥺 (just you in general as well actually 😳)

it’s the weekend, aka more time for us! can’t wait to hear from you again babe... <3

HI HIIIIII

HAHAHA YEAH WHEN I SAW IT I WAS LIKE OMGGGGGGG OMGGGGGG!!!!! the things people come up with wow 😩

oooo! that’s good then. i just don’t think i absorb information as well from movies compared to books ahaha. well i’ve learnt all the important stuff through fics now i reckon 🤪 oh i’ve seen that!! but i’ve purposely been not reading it fhdjdjskkwndks i feel like the concept wouldn’t be my thing but.. i might give it a shot. AND YESS there are so many good drarry authors who’ve written amazing fics ugh i love it here

it’s what razor deserves 😩😩 where should we take him first 🤪 family day out

hmmm fic recs which pairing? i could give you a lot of drarry, and a decent amount of iwaoi and kagehina maybe.. i don’t read a lot of fic for pairings/fandoms i write unfortunately.. but for a start the drarry fic running on air i mentioned is reaaaaally good!! a shorter one but just as good one is “to hurt and heal”. and i hope you’re doing alright 💞

omg nice!! that’s so sweet tho.. do you know anyone who’s had their childhood friends to lovers experience <33 ahahah

dude xiao and diluc omg… i am manifesting 🕯 it kinda is! if you run out of achievements and you’ve explored everything you can only really get primos from your daily commissions… i believe. which is why updates with new areas like dragonspine are a big blessing djdjskkdnfjc

yeah same omg crazy.. i think i might try levelling some of my main 4 up with books and then i’ll just like passively let them gain xp as i play lmao.…

I HAVE...… DEFINITELY MORE THAN 8 INCLUDING ONES IM JUST USING TO SAVE URLS/BLOGS I STARTED BUT NEVER CONTINUED BUT..… yeahhhhhh LMAO

omg.… your brain m.a. your brain!!! (i love cotton candy!! we call it fairy floss ehehe. do you like it?) FJSKKDKSMS i wasn’t allowed either 😔😔. oh nice!! omg peachy red??? das cool af. and i’ve never dyed my hair before!! but i’ve been wanting to bleach it lately heheh

iwaoi and kagehina dynamics are definitely top tier… i hope you’re able to work on those wips again soon!! and i have a lot of hq wips!! none i’m actively working on.. but yeah! thank you so much 😭😭😭😭 you’re too too kind to me 😭😭😭 but yeah i was also like??? i really did that??? wow. i must’ve been possessed by some kinda oikawa loving and good at drawing demon when i drew that fr (the feeling is.. mutual 😳)

ALSO THAT REMINDS ME. I HAVE THE PERFECT PLACE TO GO ON OUR CO-OP DATE omg so i was thinking about where we could possibly go together as xingqiu and chongyun before falling asleep and literally startled awake when i realised… won’t tell you yet so it’s a surprise hehehe unless you also know 👀 what i’m thinking 👀

woo!! can’t wait for your reply 💌